between abandon and ave maria...

abbandone - making the time subservient to the expression; despondingly; with self-abandon

acoustics - the science of sound, by a knowledge of which we are enabled to determine the relations of tones and the ratios of intervals produced by vibrations.

affizione - sorrowfully; with mournful expression.

ancora - once more, repeat again; also, yet, still, etc.

anmuth - sweetness, grace.

a tre mani - for three hands.

one word from each page in the A section of j.c. macy's pocket dictionary of over 500 musical terms, 1886. image: tintype of an unknown music teacher circa 1880.

when lists are like poems (as always...)

found a very very old piece of paper torn out of a book, i know not which nor what the book was, but here a list of words related to pronunciation, such as "a" as in "stain"... i cut out all of the "a as in" and left just the list. it's quite wonderful when spoken out loud, and while one suspects there were a multitude of choices to choose from for each sound, there are words here that seem specific and particular to whomever chose them of course... i hope you'll take a quiet minute or two out of your day and speak them all...

nothing but what is therein contained...

i spent this past week in philadelphia, to install several works in thomas u. walter's 1835 building for girard college. all of the works were installed on the top floor which has not been open to the public for 100 years. i've posted several times about this project which i've been working on for almost two years, so here some images of the first of three works which will be present in the space (the other two include a letterpress text work, and a sound, sculpture, and drawing installation).

this piece is titled "nothing but what is therein contained", which is a bit of text from stephen girard's will, in which he stipulated that the design of the building could only contain the things that he had specifically mentioned in his will... nothing extraneous would be allowed. the first design drawings that thomas walter made for this building were incredibly minimal and titled with this phrase.

for my own work, i took the phrase and translated it into numbers based on the alphabetical sequence of the letters, and then cut pieces of wood accordingly.

these pieces (running from a 1 foot length for an "a" to an 8 foot plus a 12 foot for a "t") were then painted in groups, a different color for each letter.

i then laid out all of the letters as a kind of stockpile, and then laid out the entire phrase.

i then began to build the structure, beginning with the first letter - "n" - and drilling and wiring the consecutive parts improvisationally, essentially using the letter sequence as a score towards determining what piece of wood would come next. it took two days to build, and it is roughly 16 feet tall. you can see the beautiful dome shaped skylights in some of the images, as well as the doorways from one space to the other. the last shot was taken looking down from one of the skylight windows.

some of the color patterns and painting was inspired by the sketchbook of amish deaf mute craftsman henry lapp, who lived outside of pennsylvania just around the time the building was finished, and the sound was composed using the sound of wine glasses being rubbed and struck with mallets in relation to benjamin franklin's glass armonica. the piece is essentially an architectural map or likeness of the text...

i will be out of town this coming week and airforms will most likely be silent for the next 7-10 days.

when wall text begins, and suggests...

in marfa, our collaborative piece was out in the landscape on the outskirts of town, but the headquarters of the exhibition was the marfa ballroom, who hosted the show. when i arrived at the space, only the first two letters of a very long wall text had been painted in, and it was strange and wonderful to see a large yellow wall that said only "em".

when i arrived home last night, i picked up a dictionary to see potentials on various words that began with em, suggesting trajectories for the wall text, making subjective choices and associations.

here a list, with some obviously known, and others read for the first time...

em - 1. the letter m. 2. printing. the square of the body size of any type, used as a unit of measure, originally an em was equivalent to the space occupied by the letter M in any given font.

emanation - an act or instance of emanating; a coming or flowing forth.

emarginate - having a notched tip, as a leaf or petal.

embark - to set out on a venture.

embayment - a bay or baylike shape. the formation of a bay

ember - a small piece of live coal or wood.

emblaze - to set on fire

emblazon - to ornament richly

emblem - an object or depiction of an object that comes to represent something else, usually by suggesting its nature or history.

embody - to invest with, or as if with bodily form. to make corporeal. to personify. to make part of a united whole.

embosom - to clasp of hold in the bosom; cherish; embrace. to shelter.

embouchere - the mouth of a river. 2. a. the mouthpiece of a wind instrument. b.the manner in which the lips and tongue are applied to such a mouthpiece.

embow - to curve into the shape of a bow or arch.

embrace - to clasp or hold to one with arms, usually as a display of affection. to take in with the eyes or mind.

embroidery - ornamentation of fabric with needlework.

emend - to improve a text by critical editing

emerald - a brilliant, transparent, green beryl used as a gemstone.

emersed - rising above the surface of water, as leaves of stems of aquatic plants.

emerson, ralph waldo - 1803 - 1882. american essayist and poet.

emission spectrum - teh spectrum of bright lines, bands, or continuous radiation chacteristic of and determined by specific emitting substance subjected to a specific kind of excitation.

emmetropia - the condition of the normal eye when parallel rays are focused exactly on the retina and vision is perfect.

emotionalist - one whose conduct, thought, or rhetoric is governed by emotion rather than reason, often as a matter of policy.

empathy - 1. the attribution of feelings aroused by an object in nature or art to the object itself, as when one speaks of a painting full of love. 2. understanding so intimate that the feelings, thoughts, and motives of one are readily comprehended by another.

emperor - 2. a. any of several brightly colored butterflies of the family nymphalidae.

empiric - one who believes that practical experience is the sole source of knowledge.

empress tree - a tree, paulownia tomentosa, native to china, having large, hairy leaves and clusters of lavender flowers.

empurple - to color or tinge with purple.

empyreal - 2. of or pertaining to the sky. celestial. 3. formed of pure fire or light.

emulsion - 2. photography. a light sensitive coating, usually of silver halide grains in a thin gelatin layer, on photographic film, paper, or glass.

when words smell of the sea...

"one ought to concentrate on all that's primitive and fresh in the language with boundless avarice. no other words should be recognized than those strikingly fragrant. the ones smelling of the sea are the best. if you have the right vernacular you have the right philosophy."

"a book - glimmering from fire and salt - should be like a good storm, continual, powerful, ceaseless, with a sharp murmur as night falls."

"the greatest moment: like the silent interplay of shadows in a budding forest - the slience of a thought's interacting shadows extending inside me."

"to be consistent can sometimes be easy enough. to be honestly inconsistent can be more difficult."

"i am but an eye looking into the blind and ghastly eye of meaninglessness. why? who am i? the howling lonliness around the human."

some gems from vilhelm ekelund, written circa 1914, from a collection of his writings called "the second light".

the long and wavy line...

this image was part of an article from an old radio and tv magazine. i believe it was related to television transmission and reception... the letters are keys to the illustrations and their meanings, which i mistakenly cut away. i think i like them better as the shapes of the sounds of the letters they are connected to.

it would be nice to see images of all the words one could make with the letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, j, k, l.

i wonder what these words would look like:

add ace ache age aged aced addage ale all able affable allege babble back bad baggage baffle bag bade badge bale bake bagel bead beef beech beach bed be bee beg bell behead beheaded blab blah black bleach bleed bleak bled beak black blade chafe chad cheek cab cabbage cage caged cake caked cede ceded dab dabble decade dad deed deeded deaf deface defaced dead deal each ebb edge egg eagle efface flack flake flaked flag flab fable face faced fad fade faded fake faked fleece feel feed fed gab gaffe gag gage gaged gale geek glad glade...

and i wonder how long that beautiful wavy line of 11 interchangeable parts, in endless combinations, would be...